Friday, July 28, 2006

Oh, hell no!

The GOP…the Republicans…are willing to support the first increase in the minimum wage in forever and a day (keep in mind, these same spend happy greedy motherfuckers haven’t missed an opportunity to vote themselves a raise) but only if that increase in the minimum wage is tied to…Are you sitting down?

***cough***

They will support an increase in the minimum wage…which impacts the wages of working Americans throughout the wage scale…as long as that increase is tied to a cut in future inheritance taxes on multimillion-dollar estates.

This is more than a pathetic attempt to defuse a key issue for Democrats this year…this move demonstrates who the majority is looking out for and it sure as shit isn’t the masses.

Drop your Representative a line…regardless of their party affiliation…and let them know how you feel about another tax cut for the mega rich and about this tax cut for the mega rich being the tied to working people’s wages.

And a bitch is personally requesting that y’all tell at least 10 people about this shit…remind them of this bold in your face legislative 'fuck you' next election day…and encourage them to reward these assholes with a ballot based boot to the ass come November.

What we need to be discussing is a living wage. Unemployment may be down, but the working poor are working two and three jobs so that comes as no surprise to me.

Now, if that's a cool trade off for you...folks working two and three jobs to not make ends meet...going without insurance like some 100,000 Missourians who will eventually end up costing tax payers more money to treat for uncared for illnesses and preventable drama...well then that's between you and yours.

But it is not as simple as employers taking the only hit while workers get the cash.

Nope...not that simple at all.

For the working poor, any hardship...four days without electricity on a fixed income...a busted tire...an overheated car...an unplanned for trip to the dentist...can throw the delicate balance into chaos.

I work for a small business and with small businesses, so I'm up on the challenges we face. But I'm also up on the challenge of trying to make it paycheck to paycheck on $5.15 an hour.

The really, pathetic, sad thing is, raising the minimum wage to 7.15 represents a 3% increase in 1997 dollars (the last time was increased). So Wendy's and Walmart and every hotel will have to absorb a way delayed increase in labor costs. Most other businesses have had to deal with that. No fucking wonder there are so many illegals in this country. Doing the work that Americans won't......my skinny white ass! Motherfucking shame indeed.

Actually, the coin only has one side - that additional cost gets rolled to the consumer so for the small-business it's essentially a wash. If a business is in an industry where they can get away with paying minimum-wage then you can rest assured that all of its competitors are also paying minimum wage so there would be little loss of business to competitors. Would the increased wages force prices high enough to shrink the marketplace itself, to push potential consumers out of the market? I doubt it - other than fast-foods minimum wage jobs predominate in areas that service needs, not wants, hence the demand curve for those industries are relatively inelastic and the relatively small bump in prices industry-wide should have little long-term effect on the market.

Long story short, increase the minimum wage and quit crying about it.

In fact, increases in the minimum wage should be directly tied to increases in Congressional pay - whatever percentage pay raise Congress votes itself should also be applied to the minimum wage. If Congress deserves a 5% pay raise then so does the old man who greets the shoppers at Wally World.

Undeniable liberal - a 2 dollar increase in the minimum wage for an employer who uses 200 hours of labor per week at minimum wage, or 4 employers who use 50 hours per week, or any way you want to look at it..... does cost an additional $400 per week.

Truthfully, it would cost an additional $430 per week or slightly more than that due to the employer's 7.65% FICA contribution on top of the $2 per hour increase.

So $430 per week x 52 weeks per year is a whopping $22,360 increase in costs for just one year. That is what is undeniable.

Lightning -

The last time the minimum wage was increased was 1996. I was in college and working a supervisory job at a grocery store to pay my way at the time. When the minimum wage went up what we had to do was reduce the number of hours per week the high school kids working their first jobs were scheduled, and fewer additional ones were hired.

This will hurt small businesses, and the people looking for their first jobs who make up the overwhelming majority of minimum wage workers. Most are in their teens and live at home.

What the fuck? These greedy pigfucker republicans will only raise the min wage if the millionaires get the estate tax cut? Money they earned on the backs of the working poor and immigrants? Well I got news for the GOP, enjoy this shit cause you will lose your majority in the Senate and probally in the House come November.

Something else that's undeniable: that extra $22,360 per year is going into the pockets of people who are going to spend it. If the bosses keep $22,360, they'll save it, or maybe invest it in an IRA or an overseas company, but that does nothing to increase demand for goods or services here (except maybe investment services), does nothing to raise productivity, and serves mostly to further concentrate wealth. Give the $22,360 to the workers, and they're going to buy some shit. Or maybe pay off some bills, buy some health insurance, keep out of bankruptcy, or otherwise find some way to pump that money back into the U.S. economy. And eventually, all that money will end up back in the fat cats' pockets anyway.

I dispute that most minimum-wage workers are teenagers or first-job holders who live at home. Maybe in Scott's world. But there are plenty of people out there who work minimum wage jobs (often more than one), or jobs where wages are tied in some fashion to the minimum wage, who are supporting families on that money. Is it really necessary to wait until somebody starves to death before we raise the minimum wage? Is that really the bar we want to set?

I can't disagree completely with Scott. It will hurt businesses by the need for additional budgeted funds for wages. However, businesses haven't had to worry about this for ten years. Business is a lovely creature. They, like everything else, overcome and adapt. A raise in the minimum wage will not dicimate small businesses. It'll hurt in the short run, but things adjust.

I figured the Republicans would piggyback something they wanted in order to get this through to W.

I'm mixed on this one. I am a Republican (sorry, Shark ... I hope you don't hate me for confessing) so I am all for any type of tax reduction or elimination. But a reduction aimed at only the mega-rich? I can't agree with that.

I like how one Senator put it:

"Just think of what it is to have a bill that says to minimum wage workers, 'We'll raise your minimum wage but only if we can give an estate tax cut to the 7,500 wealthiest families in America." ~ Nancy Pelosi, D-CA.

It makes tactical political sense. Republicans have been gunning for the estate tax for a long time. What the gov't fails to understand is they are takin revenue out of their own pockets. I thought Republicans were fiscally responsible anyway?

As for the minimum wage, it will raise costs. As a person who deal with a non profits finances, I know our expenses will go up in the form of insurance, contributions etc., but that increased wages will quickly go back into circulation. It will go for expendables but also for the unexpected.

I grew up in East Oakland in California, and I can absiolutely tell you that a lot of people there were working for minimum wage and trying to support a family on it. In Reno, there are many families where the parents work 2 or 3 jobs just to get by. This is not a teenage wage earner problem; this is a problem with not paying a living wage to the people who need it most.

Oscar has it right - the people working these jobs are working in areas that are not selling luxuries. People *need * the products and services; they will pay for them, even if the prices increase a little to cover the wage increase.

I would expect that most of us blogging and reading blogs have the luxury of being pretty sure that bills will get paid and that we have a place to live. That is not true of much of the world. If you look at how much people make a month on minimum wage, how much it costs to rent a studio, add in minimal food, utilities, travel-to-work costs (bus or car), and clothing essentials, you are often looking at not enough money just to cover that. Add to that trying to support a family and medical costs (since most are uninsured) and you end up in a situation where you have to decide between shots for the kid, food for dinner, and paying all of the rent so you don't get kicked out.

Having to work two or three jobs just to survive is completely unreasonable.

Feels to me like the Republicans are saying "Bribe me with future money for my family and we'll let you spend a little on your poor workers." That does not work for me.

As you know if you've worked one of these jobs, they generally have some kind of token raise which kicks in at regular intervals, such that after some sort of three-month "trial period" (read: no benefits), one is no longer getting the actual minimum wage of $5.15, but some amount which is higher but not significantly so, like $5.40.

The link (which I appreciate the link, by the way, Scott) continually states that the statistics apply to workers who are earning an hourly wage of $5.15 or less. So if you take a job at Pizza Hut, and you're still there three months later, you might be getting $5.35 an hour, and you wouldn't count in the 3% of the workforce earning minimum wage, never mind that $5.35/hr (about $11,128/yr, pre-tax, for a full-time worker who never misses a shift and never gets overtime) isn't liveable money either.

(Also, many such jobs deliberately schedule you for 30-35 hours per week to avoid having to pay overtime or offer benefits, so you're not likely to be getting quite as much as the $11K.)

There are also a number of jobs in which the hourly wage is tied to the minimum wage but adjusted for local cost of living, even in states without a higher minimum wage, where e.g. starting pay is set at $1.25/hr over the minimum. These would obviously also be affected by a raise in the minimum wage.

I'd be willing to buy the idea that small businesses are helped out by low or no minimum wage requirements, if this were backed up by observation. But the states without such requirements (KS, LA, MS, AL, TN, SC) don't really rate as economic powerhouses, and among the states with higher state minimum wage you have some like FL, CA, WA, NY, MA, IL, and DE, which have been doing pretty well lately in general, though I don't know about how they rate for small businesses per se.

Bush's agenda has always included a repeal of the "Death Tax". . .apparently attaching it to a minimum wage increase is the only way they can get it on the floor. Those fucking assholes.

Also, Chicago and Boston have done great things in regards to Walmart demanding a minimum wage increase or health insurance for workers (respectively) if they want to set up shop in those cities. mmmmhhhhmmmm. Maybe our states need to take more control over what happens to their citizens? I don't know. Republicans are notorious for not wanting American citizens to be dependent on their resources. Ugh.

Fuck the federal government on this one. You'd think they would want to increase minimum wage to cut down on the number of illegal immigrants taking low wage jobs in this country WITHOUT coupling it to the repeal of the Death Tax (which doesn't have an effect on middle class Americans (contrary to popular belief!). But, hey, that would be almost. . .SELFLESS! Eeek!

I'm fine with it myself, as long as workers get to finally get an increase, that's the main thing. Bsides, there are a lot of family farms that are under the gun because of inheritiance taxes, which I agree are blatantly unconstitutional to begin with, as this is income that has already been taxed.

My main gripe with tax cuts are with the income tax breaks the wealthy and big corporations have been getting, those are what should be repealed. Hopefully, they will be eventually.